thank you very much. >> ♪

>> and they will want to thank them for the lumir willingness. i want to recognize that we also have a very diverse group of individuals serving on a diverse group of boards and bodies. have the pleasure of reappointing someone who has a connection that goes back generations, larry mazzola, sr. i'm pleased that subject to approval, p.j. johnson will serve again. president of the arts

commission, who has been doing an outstanding job, really raising the bar in terms of public art and our commitment to neighborhood arts. i want to thank lisa gruwell for her willingness to serve on the civil service commission that sets my salary. i wish you luck and independence from whoever is serving as mayor. i want to thank the environment commission, which is something we are very proud of, for his willingness to serve as a new member. london and michael are quite familiar to their commissions. they will both be here. thank you, chief. i know you are pleased to have both of them. you have already told me you are pleased to have both of them.

i am enthusiastic about their commissions. it's a good thing for everybody. we will have the opportunity to give people an opportunity to give people on their respective boards the opportunity to serve as well. thank you, lily chan. she will be serving on the golden gate park concourse authority, which is interesting for so many reasons. i'm grateful that you are willing to continue your service here and the city as well. human rights commission, reappointing cecilia, michael, and julius. you have done a great job. i appreciate your support of our director, into the good work, the human rights commission continues to do. where is sam? there you are. thank you, sam. thank you for your willingness

to continue to serve on the immigrant rights commission, and your good stewardship and leadership in the committee. michael nguyen. we technically swore in michael, but it was private. i appreciate your willingness to come here are any more public setting and have the honor to swear you in. carol kingsley, who was supported unanimously, which is pretty impressive, on the police commission. she will be serving as the newest police commissioner. i'm very enthusiastic. the board of supervisors seems to share that. well, air and good lucome and g. not the easiest of commissions,

but incredibly important. we went through a lot of presiresidents. i'm appreciative of her willingness to serve. the rent board. do not screw up something that is working. we had a debate on a solution to a mysterious problem. we do not have a problem because we have a balanced rent board. people that want to obtain a strong relationship and inappropriate one. as a consequence, i felt like i did not need to reappoint new folks. felt like i could reappoint the existing folks. they're doing a great job. thank you for your willingness to continue your service. i do not know why -- all of you

were enthusiastic, too, when i called you. i thought maybe one or two of you wanted to take a vacation from the service. i am grateful that you were willing. i am also grateful the retirement board is getting a lot of attention. pensions are getting a lot of attention. some people have confused san francisco with sacramento. it is a big difference. budgets, pensions, retirements. nonetheless, this is an important body and board. we have two great people who are willing to serve. i know he is very enthusiastic. he was very concerned that we appoint people of high integrity, high skills, that tended to be above a lot of the

politics in this town. we have two great people there. i imagine he wanted to be with all of you. he wanted to be with his wife in particular. wendy paskin-jordan is here as one of the new appointees to the retirement board. she will join victor makras, who is very familiar to us. i kind of try to convince you. i was not sure victor was so excited about this. i asked him. hi needed somebody of his character. i am very pleased. i think those are two great appointees, wendy and victor. this will continue to elevate what is already a model retirement board for the rest of the state. the two remaining divisions, the small business commission, jamie, thank you for your

willingness to serve. as a small businesswoman, you know a thing or two about the challenges and reveal. lu o'brien -- how long have you serve? not even a full year. this will extend his turn. -- term. you guys ask good questions yesterday. it is important. finally, al norman. al, thank you for your willingness to serve in the southeast community facility commission. i always thought -- we need to raise this far out there of what we do for the southeast community facility. we'll have a lot of conversations. al is a legend out there. thank you for that.

who else are we missing? oh, yeah, nancy. you will also be continuing your service. i apologize. we did not know you were going to make it. i'm glad you made it, nancy. thank you for extending your service with the golden gate concourse. i will remind everybody -- if you are going to disagree with me, please give me a heads up. that does not mean that things do not, in front of you that are controversial and on the fly, you might have a point of view, and you should share that point of view. on big issues, all i ask is a heads up. only on two occasions -- frank, i imagine this has happened to you periodically. i have a call at 2:00 in the morning where one of my department heads was removed by the commission. nobody gave me a heads up.

i was a little concerned about that. those are the kind of things. give me a heads up. otherwise, exercise your independence. exercise your insight. that's why you're here. i just want the opportunity to have a chance to dialogue if we are on different sides. then you use your judgement and conclude as best you could what is the right path for the people of san francisco, who do not represent some special interest. the folks that show up here are important. folks that do not have the time to show up here are equally important. please remember there are a lot of people out there that count on you to also have a voice that cannot make it down to your committee hearing or board. that is something that is very, very important to me. that's why you are here.

you are here to represent the city. that city includes those that do not have stickers or buttons, that do not show up at 6:00 p.m., that also deserve your attention and your goodwill and your stewardship. those are really two points. otherwise, i'm very happy that you're here. i'm very thankful. thank you for coming down to city hall. supervisor duffy is sitting there with his arms crossed. what is it? are you ready? all right. anytime someone has his hands crossed, that means get going. they are shutting down. [laughter] york physiology changed my standing up, and raising your right hand. when i say i, you state your

name. why don't we go down here? larry will go back, and we will end with you. during such time, we hold the position of -- and then you will mention your respective commission board or body. is that easy? all right. you have your right hand up. i -- [inaudible] i do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the

constitution of the united states, and the constitution of the state of california, that i bear trap, faith, and allegiance to the state, that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter. and during such time, as i hold the position, as a member -- [inaudible]

for the city and county of san francisco. congratulations, everybody. [applause] i appreciate how effective that was. [applause]

>> let's get started. thank you all. very much. for taking the time to be here. i'm willie brown. and i'm honored to swear in 13 new and not old in terms of time of life but senior representatives of various bodies and boards of commissions in city leadership. i have the privilege today of wearing in 13 people. five who have served previously on board the commissions and seven that will be serving for their first times. i'm honored to be joined by many distinguished guests, leaders in their own right and capacity,

members of various commissions, directors of various departments. our senior leader at city hall, my chief of staff and, importantly, former mayor willie brown, who took the time to be here. thank you, mayor. [applause] >> i have said this in a few other public occasions but it bears repeating particularly in light of the fact mayor brown took the time to be here. i started my time and tenure here at city hall, was actually across the street, the temporary facility, when i got a call from someone in the mayor's office who said that she was very proud that the mayor had selected me to serve on the film commission, which i was quite enthusiastic about. 25, 26 years old, no experience in city government but i loved movies and i thought i would

make an outstanding film commissioner. from my perspective it didn't get any better than that. i don't know about the t.u.c. stuff and all that, forget that. film, that what i was cut out for. i was invited down to a very large wearing in ceremony. this is around the first year of the brown administration. there must have been 50 or 60 people that were in the temporary board of supervisors chambers across at the war memorial. the mayor went around and started telling stories as only brown can do, about every single commissioner. and he finally got across and down to me and didn't have much to say except that he was very enthusiastic that i agreed to be the president of the parking and traffic commission. he didn't tell his staff. he sure as heck didn't tell me. and this is a true story.

there was one camera there back in the gold,days of -- golden days of cron 4 and asked me what my vision was for parking and traffic in san francisco. baptism by fire. i said something along the lines i pay my parking tickets. didn't go over so well. but the experience did. and it taught me a lot. it was an interesting year serving as president of that commission. we had some changes with the -- in fact, there were three different department heads that one year. it got very interesting. t.j. johnson and i got to know even other very well. we also were involved at the time in raising the upper deck of the central freeway. so it was a particularly -- well, it was a really enjoyable

year. i applied myself. i worked hard and then as you may recall, i became an affirmative action pick to be the next member of the board of superviso supervisors. and you may be quizy calendar in wondering what i said and wondering whether it was politically correct. mayor brown had the time of his life trying to figure out who would replace kevin shelly on the the board of supervisors a year or so later and made the point when he appointed me and the kraupb -- the chronicle said there was so diversity on the board of supervisors and someone long a champion of affirmative action he needed to appoint a candidate that reflected the person that reflected that by putting on the only straight white male. thus was the pick of mayor brown to be a member of the legislative branch so i would like to thank my tenure and term

of the commissioner helped guide him in that decision making but i was proud of both appointments and would not be here had it not been here for willie brown. so mayor brown, thank you for everything. who knows your paths? you may look at that as a negative in terms of your appointment. saying i have greater ambitions than the path you took but nonetheless i'm glad all of you are hear and thank you for your willingness to serve on these various bodies. i will say this because mayor brown and meyer feinstein primed me all the time to remind you that as appointees we are not here to tell you what to do or dictate the dealerships, but you do hope and expect if i do call you, you take the call and if you have strong opinions that are in contrast to the opinions that have been expressed by the

administration, please just give us heads up. there have been two circumstances, which is not bad in seven years, where i wasn't given heads up where one of my department heads was removed by a commission without anyone letting us know at 2:00 in the morning and we had some changes to the commissions that were dramatic where we didn't get heads up. we worked through them. but all i ask is use your judgment, always look out for the best interests of the city as a whole, represent the people that come in front of you, but don't forget there are 800,000-plus people that you represent that have never come down to city hall and 150 people that work here and live here full-time represent good and important things, but there are a lot of people that need to be represented here. so i always want to remind to you reach out beyond just the halls of city hall and those that have the time to show up

and are privileged enough to express themselves directly to you. that is my only criterion, my only consideration in the context of a string that is attached to this appointment. just give me a heads up, do what you think is right, always stand on principle. don't play politics. this is not about you. this is about the people we represent and the people we serve and we are privileged all of us to have this moment in time and that we are honored by the fact that the city has a charter that allows us to have this kind of representative governance structure that allows this kind of interaction and delibera deliberative process. with that a few words. we have an arts commissioner that will be appointed. city hall preservation advisory committee a body formed by mayor brown, a building that he was responsible for providing.

entertainment commissioner why, al, would you want to be on the entertainment commission is beyond me. a representative of the film commission. billy is an old friend who does great work. human rights, talk more about shirley in a moment. immigrant rights, art and sonia thank you for your willingness to serve. library, beverly, it is exciting to have you on board and so much good has been said about you. mark buhl, recreation and parks department will be reappointed chair of the revenue bond oversight committee at the p.u.c. very important. a body that was formed in, i think, 2002, formally. we also have a new commissioner that only she cannot river on time -- arrive on time pa because she worked for me, rebecca prada but her husband is here. she will be appointed on the status of women. just a few thoughts.

i thank luis, all the work the arts commission, p.j. johnson has done great work and it is an example of all the great public art not just in front of city hall but all over the city and county of san francisco. mark comes with a lot of good work behind him and a lot of exciting things in front of him. he was disproportionately responsible for helping us with our sister city's arts exchange program which is one of a kind. is something completely unique and very proud he and matthew and others worked so hard on and i think he will be an outstanding addition. this is an artist in residence program that is an international model. we know jim and ellen and may, their work here in the preservation of san francisco city hall and everything you see around us, the civic center.

they appropriately were reappointed by the board and had to be confirmed first and all are outstanding leaders and stewards in their own right. ellen is in my office every day doing tours and jim outside the office every day doing his part to advocate on behalf of city hall and the civic center. and may is everywhere else in the community. ubiquitous and out front and a true later. al perez, i thank you for serving on the entertainment. i have been beating up the entertainment commission lately. maybe i should have taken mayor brown's advice in not supporting it to begin with but we have it and we are working through some of the issues and you demonstrated real leadership this last week on some of the issues down at the port with one of the clubs and i like that kind of immediacy in terms of response and feel like we have new resolve and with your leadership i'm confident the commission will live up to all

of our expectations. bil billy, again, no one does more in terms of engaging our youth in the community on film. we will have a new director. i haven't announced her yet but good news there and i look forward to you working. we have more film coming in the next few months. it is amazing. this will take off. this 2010-2011 are exciting times for film and tv in san francisco. sheur shirley brierblack one of our outstanding leaders and anchors in the community. founding member of the sfmta board, a victim not just willie brown but shirley a victim of term limits on the m.t.a. board. we are very proud, i know probably 90% of you hear from shirley. we want to thank you for your support of her and thank you to shirley for her support of our city and i think will be an out